(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the art of telephones, and in particular, to an apparatus which is useful for mounting a hand-held telephone to a wall or vertical surface.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Within the last few years manufacturers of telephone equipment have been designing and offering to the consumer market a new generation of low cost compact telephone instrument. These "electronic" telephones include all necessary working components within a single hand-held package. This radical departure from the typical telephone instrument and its bulky base unit and separate handset is due mainly to advanced techniques of miniaturization and integrated circuit technology.
All the telephones of this new generation are designed as desk units, where when not in use rest on a horizontal surface. Wall mounted telephones on the other hand have become increasingly popular in a variety of locations in the home. Such as in the kitchen or workshop where they are mounted to a wall at a convenient height to the user. Thus it becomes advantageous to be able to mount the new hand-held telephone instruments to a vertical surface or wall.
In order to accomplish this end, an assembly which would hold such an instrument must not only simply fasten to a vertical surface but must be adaptable for use with permanently installed wall receptacle plates, in the same fashion as standard wall telephone instruments.
Typically, wall telephones are mounted to wall receptacles which use the industry standard two pin mounting. This particular mounting uses two equally spaced apart pins which extend outward from the receptacle plate for a certain distance and are adapted to engage a mounting plate on the rear wall of a wall telephone. The receptacle plate may further include a jack which provides the normal operating signals to the instrument.
While the two pin receptacle has become a standard means of securing and electrically connecting a wall telephone, the distance between the pins and the height of the pins varies between manufactures. Thus, the wall telephone mounting plates found on the telephone instrument of a particular manufacturer may only be used with the receptacle plates provided by that particular company. In consumer owned instruments it becomes a distinct advantage for that instrument to be accommodated on telephone wall receptacle plate pin configurations of different manufacturers.
Accordingly it becomes an object of the present invention to provide an assembly able to mount a hand-held telephone simply and effectively to vertical surface or wall.